we are all jumpin on the train that goes to the kingdom/we're happy, ma, we're havin fun

[ninety6tears]

So I saw The Hunger Games and I had lots of feelings but I feel unqualified to talk about them because I thought I didn't really want to read the books and I guess I'm gonna have to. No warnings about Mockingjay are needed, I already know it pissed off a lot of people. Assumptions that I will dislike the ending of something just because most people did make me kind of prickly anyway.
But yeah, I'm getting slightly annoyed about the huge number of people that don't think the world was fleshed out enough/weren't able to take for granted that a dystopia like that would even be possible, like the movie needed to be heavy on pithy exposition-heavy conversations for anybody to read between the lines. Please to be looking up "hegemony" in a dictionary/studying more history. Sure, you probably have to suspend disbelief to an extent, but nobody ever makes that complaint about Brave New World, do they? For the most part I could see some younger audiences having some trouble grasping the politics rather than just accepting that Villains Are Evil, but maybe that isn't giving them enough credit.
And then there's the Team Peeta/Team Gale bullshit that I think probably comes from a confirmation-biased readership that wouldn't have expected a romance and wouldn't see this series as a romance if it had been written by a male. I like both characters enough? Can I just be Team Cinna?
As you can see, I have nothing to say about The Hunger Games.

I am in St. Louis right now and my sister and I are probably going to the Science Center today to check out the Star Trek exhibition. Woo!

Comments

[clarice.livejournal.com]

There's definitely a love triangle in the books, but it's not Twilight-style. And while I could nitpick some of the execution and pacing in Mockingjay, I liked it and the ending.

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

I know there is a big element of romance but not enough for it to be the main genre, so it just disappoints me that it seems to get reduced to that. I'm okay with it having more romance than Twilight has of actual plot, heh.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Why read the books if you don't want to? I mean what makes you think you have to read them? Just go see the movie if you wanna see the movie. I do think the books capture a lot more complexity than the movie, which was good, if a bit dumbed down.

And...I don't think this series written by a male would feature a fairly badass teen girl with two male love interests. I just don't see that happening that often in books written by men. More like the books would feature Peeta as the hero and Katniss would be his manic pixie dream girl love interest/fellow tribute.

And the romance is very prominent in the books because they are first person in Katniss's POV, and she spends a lot of her time trying to figure out how she feels about both boys. (In truth, she's probably more asexual than anything else...but that's probably not very commercial in the YA market, you know?)

I'm not really sure I understand why people get so upset by the Team Gale/Team Peeta stuff. It's like people ranting that shippers exist to me--they seem offended that you could be invested in just the romance or more invested in the romance than anything else. Which...who the hell cares? If that's what you like about the books, why can't you like that? It doesn't reduce anyone else's experience with them. And it also doesn't mean that you don't get the big picture war storyline or that it's the only thing you're interested in (although if it is, again, so what? Ain't nothing wrong with liking romance.) That kind of argument whenever it crops up makes me so mad because it just seems so terribly condescending and with a nice hefty hint of misogyny behind it with the implication that "silly teenage girls only care about romance" or whatever. Bah on that, I say.

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

(When I'm saying I "have to" read them I'm just saying I'm way more tempted to.)

The "teams" bother me more because I think it's too emphasized by the media when they talk about this series and seems to be piggybacking right off of Team Edward vs. Team Jacob and this perceived trend for stories in which the female protagonist's only real important decision she makes is which man she chooses or how much she's willing to sacrifice for that man, and it greatly reduces a character as strong as Katniss and just plain misleads about the story, which is not only probably a stronger romance than Twilight but actually succeeds at being an exciting genre novel in a way most would say Twilight really does not. I don't have to think that it's a bad thing for anyone to be invested in the romance to think it's bad for it to be the stereotype that women and girls exclusively are, because they're not. And I think a man would be fully capable of writing this type of story, we just don't often see it because of the sexist perception you mention that female characters and the type of stories that tend to appeal to females (because it's a self-perpetuating trend, IMO) are somehow inferior.

I really don't have a problem with anyone being on a team, because obviously most readers will have an opinion on the love triangle, and if I read the series I probably will too. I just think the manufactured expectation for Hunger Games to be the next Twilight has created a low interest in the main female character as anything other than a pendulum between two male characters, and that's a damn shame (especially if the character seems asexual). I totally agree that it's too often that shipping is shamed as this character-erasing interest in a story that is indifferent to the plot - when I read or watch something I care about character far above plot, and their relationships are a natural extension of that. But I've seen/heard about multiple articles about the Hunger Games craze that couldn't resist analyzing the love triangle as the main selling point, and I don't think that's quite right because I don't think it's true. And since genre fiction is still roughly a male-dominated thing (not so much in the YA realm, maybe? You'd probably know more about that than I do), it's good for female authors who want to write romance for it to not be considered weaker writing, but it's not so good for women who like to focus more on other elements for people to assume they can't write a novel that has more stereotypically masculine subjects (and Hunger Games has both).

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Oh I see! Temptation!

Hmm, Interesting that you're finding articles that focus exclusively on the romance. More often than not I've seen articles that bring it up--because it is a huge plotline and Katniss spends a lot of time internally agonizing about it--then dismiss it right after by saying "But that's not what the series is about, Katniss is blah blah blah revolutioncakes" which is fine, but also then usuall manage to passive-aggressively shit all over Twilight and YA series that DO hinge on a love triangle, and you know the entire romance genre. Which I also find really sexist and shitty to do. So maybe it's a toss up. Damned if you do and damned if you don't I guess.

But then again, I don't really see anything wrong with an article that focuses wholely on the romance element of the series either. Probably Katniss spends far more pages in the trilogy thinking about her boys than she does war, especially since she has no desire to actually be involved in that war. I'm not sure why there is such a stigma that a woman/teen who *is* choosing between two love interests at a crucial coming of age point in her life is so much less important part of a story than external elements like war. I think that's derived from a male culture too--that intrinsic idea to poo-poo romance as unimportant, or women's issues, when love (to me anyway) is so much more important to our health and well-being and daily living than global politics, even oppressive global politics.

I'm just not sure why it has to be either/or when it comes to romance. Collins very deliberately crafted her novel to hinge on both the war aspect AND the romance aspect of the book. In mostly equal measure. So I think it's just as valid to focus on either part of it. And I can't imagine she's upset or thinks people assume she can't write a stronger/harder novel because of it or any of that at all.

(And ironically, I'd say THG has a much WEAKER romance than Twilight actually because Katniss is pretty passive w/r/t to the romance and Bella, at least, knows what she wants when it comes to romance, even if that seems to be her sole interest. I won't spoil you but if you read it, you'll probably see what I mean. Things happen but Katniss doesn't seem to CHOOSE much of it.)

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

It's not a secret that I kind of hate the Twilight series, but I despise the constant sneers it gets because it's never for the valid reasons one could argue that they're weakly written or offensive but simply for what they are and who they appeal to. And in the same way everyone assumes that Twilight is shit even when they've never picked up one of the books, they assume that anything that involves an adolescent love triangle is an imitation of it and therefore also bad. Or they assume that any vampire or werewolf novel anymore is trying to appeal to the same crowd and isn't as good as an actual fantasy novel (and to be fair, Meyer had maybe two fantasy concepts that were kind of cool, just not handled as much or as well as I would have liked). It's like, hardly any of it's Stephenie's fault because I think much of the stigma would actually be the same even if Bella Swan was a strong female protag and she wrote more like Pullman or Rowling, but I'm just so ready for Twilight and all the comparisons to it to go away already.

I think the reason I assume that the romance aspect can't be a huge one in the books is because it doesn't exactly seem like Katniss is likely to have much room to have those issues. For me it's not so much that the war aspect is more important than her personal emotions but that it seems like she would be under too much pressure to really contemplate those kinds of things. I admit a lot of my negativity about this is that I'm wary of getting into fandoms where people manage to care more about the pairings than they do about the characters, probably because I'm still bitter about the people in BSG fandom rejoicing that Kara didn't end up with Lee when I was still trying to get over the fact that she didn't get to LIVE.

[mutantjules.livejournal.com]

the triangle DOES exist, so the Team Whoever stuff does kinda become a legit thing within the fandom, but it doesn't start until the second book. And even then, it's SO not the greater issue because obviously there are larger themes at hand. And so I kind of resent the way the movie is being marketed so much in a TEAM BLANK way because it feels like they're trying to capitalize on the Twilight angle to draw in more people to see this, and the comparison annoys me because there's so much more going on here. BUT WHATEVER~

OH AND yay Star Trek exhibit!

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

There have been people complaining about lots of Team Edward types at the movie showings who had to make booing noises every time Gale came on screen and shit like that, and I'm like...I don't think they should call themselves fans if they're ruining the serious parts of the movie for other people because of secondary shit that doesn't happen until later in the books :/ Shipping is a fun sport, but have some fucking class, kids.

[jolinar-rosha.livejournal.com]

I never pay attention to the majority of fans when it comes to book-to-films adaptations, because I've come to discover that most of them just seem to love to whine because the tiniest little detail wasn't done as they imagined it. People just don't get it's a different medium, it has to be adapted, things have to be changed/cut and if you don't like seeing changes, then they just shouldn't watch it.

I loved the film, btw. I think they did a wonderful job - and I especially liked getting to see the gamemakers controlling the arena - I thought it added to the feeling that it was nothing more than a tv show to the people of the Capitol - as well as the beginnings of the rebellion in District 11.

As for Mockingjay, I absolutely LOVED it. The ending and everything. It had bits in it I didn't like, but that was just because I wanted certain characters to live. But everything fit, and I can more than accept tragedy when it's done so that it fits the story. Not everything has a happy ending, and I won't dislike a story because it doesn't.

Also, argh, don't remind me about the teams bullshit. Why does everything have to be team whatever in teen romances these days? I like both characters too, they're both great, and even when Katniss ended up with the one I didn't favour, I was content, because by that point in the story it just made sense to be with him and not the other.
I'll be team Cinna with you. Or, I'll just be team Finnick, because he was my favourite character in the books anyway. :P

And, have fun at the Star Trek exhibition!

(ps: just found out Meyer's The Host will be made into a film, which I'm crazily happy over, because that book is nothing like Twilight and I loved it to bits. But the fans are already bitching! lol)

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

I figured it would be a decent adaptation that didn't shy away from using the different medium well, since the author has a history in screenwriting and I think I've heard people say her style feels very visual and all that. But yeah, I thought it was great. The mood whiplash between the oppressors and the oppressed was really effective.

The exhibition was pretty cool - mostly costumes and stuff, but of course we weren't allowed to take pictures. I was really excited they had the Khan costume.

[jolinar-rosha.livejournal.com]

pity, I hate it when they don't allow pictures. But still, Star Trek YAY.

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

I haven’t watched the movie yet, but from what I remember when I first read the book (it’s been two years) the love triangle wasn’t very prominent but rather subtextual/at the background –which I found refreshing/interesting, especially given the genre we are talking about (definitely not my cuppa, though I inexplicably keep reading the stuff). This approach obviously changed in Catching Fire and Mockingjay, but still didn’t bother me a great deal since I always got the impression that there was much more going on. That being said, I must say that Peeta always irritated me as a character because I just hate with a fiery passion the romantic trope of the Guy Who Is Good For Her and Looooooves Her Unconditionally (no matter if he only saw her ONCE when they were kids and decided he was madly in love with her, stalking her for all those years WTF).

And I always thought that people who hated Mockingjay were the minority? I didn’t like the book because I found it was a mess on multiple levels –storytelling, character development, pace... I’ve always felt like Collins wrote herself into a corner since she was telling the whole series from Katniss's POV. And although the ultimate resolution kinda makes sense, it was so poorly executed that ruined the entire series for me. But whatever, I still respect what she was trying to do with the book and the series.

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

I must say that Peeta always irritated me as a character because I just hate with a fiery passion the romantic trope of the Guy Who Is Good For Her and Looooooves Her Unconditionally Hah, I can totally understand this. I feel like I'm supposed to be heartbroken for him specifically for being chosen to have to fight this girl he "loves," but when it comes to the boys next door it obviously would have been way worse if Gale had been picked so I'm just like "Well, it was never gonna be a cup of tea to have to try to kill 23 people, son, and it doesn't change things much that this one's really pretty."